#DailyDevotion YHWH JeSuS Wants All People To Be Saved
Romans 1113Now, I am speaking to you non-Jews. As I am sent to the non-Jews, I glorify my work. 14Perhaps I can make my fellow Jews jealous and save some of them. 15When God rejects them, the world is reconciled to God; when God accepts them, what can it mean but that the dead will live?
Paul was called as an apostle to the Gentiles. The other apostles were called to evangelize the Jews. However both Paul and other apostles did in fact evangelize everyone they came into contact with, the Jew first and then the Gentiles. It was God’s plan since ancient times to bring the good news to all people and gather them all together as one holy people of God.
Paul particularly glorified his work among the Gentiles. Here he hopes that his work among them may provoke his fellow Jews to jealously and save some of them. The Jews were looking for a messiah. They had rejected this Jesus fellow from Nazareth. But now these multitudes of Gentiles were turning away from idols to worship the God of Israel. They lives had changed and had gone from darkness to the light and glory of God. More than that, they claimed they followed and worshiped Jesus of Nazareth as the very messiah they were looking for.
Yet, the Jews of Jesus’ day and even of this present day have had their hearts hardened by their unbelief so that the Gentiles may be made room for in the kingdom of God. God had rejected them because of their unbelief. Through this, the world is reconciled to God. That is to say, God is now softening up the hearts of stone the Gentiles had so they may come to faith in God’s only begotten Son, the Son of Man, Jesus Christ of Nazareth as their Redeemer, Savior, Lord and God.
Yet as we have seen, God has not forsaken everyone of Jewish descent. Paul was a Jew. The first apostles and disciples were Jews. The early church was mostly Jewish. But now is the time of the Gentiles, for them to hear the word and teaching of the LORD Jesus Christ even as for centuries the LORD Jesus Christ had led and taught the people of Israel through the Torah and the prophets. Throughout this time of the Gentiles Jewish people still have come to faith in Yeshua, Jesus as their messiah and have been baptized. Paul seems to be intimating in this chapter of Romans there will be a time when God will again accept the Jews, i.e. en masse, and they will in great numbers believe Jesus Christ of Nazareth is their Messiah, the Son of Man and Son of God.
Paul reasons that if God accepts them again and softens their hearts of stone to hearts of flesh so they too will en masse believe in Jesus as their Messiah, as the LORD of the Torah that means the dead will live. What he means by this is when they come to faith in the LORD again the Last Day is at hand. Already we are seeing missionary organizations to the Jewish people like Jews for Jesus and Apple of His Eye springing up gathering the children of Israel into the Church, making them one with Jesus and his body the Church. For this, we rejoice in God our Savior. So through the Gospel of Jesus all Israel, the spiritual Israel, Jew and Gentile who confess Jesus as the LORD are saved.
Heavenly Father, we praise you that we have been called out of the world to be one with your son Jesus Christ. Soften now the hearts of the Jewish people that they too may recognize their messiah and believe in him and so be saved as well. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
https://www.appleofhiseye.org/